


Matchmaker

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-03
Updated: 2009-04-21
Packaged: 2019-06-15 13:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15413685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Someone once commented that they'd seen fics where Spike helped Buffy and Angel get together, but had never seen the reverse.  So I thought, "Well, actually I think Angel would be adorkably bad as a matchmaker"... and somehow that led to this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, after I made him a complete sociopath in "Compatible Faults" I felt a little guilty toward old broodypants and so I started writing this: an Angel fic!
> 
> I know! Please, pick up your jaws. It's also decidedly PG, so far, and no pairings, yet.

Angel could say with all certainty that he had felt every form of awkward when it came to Buffy. He’d been the anxious beau meeting the mother. He’d been the ex. He’d been the ex meeting the current and getting chewed out for one tiny (well-deserved) butt-kicking.

This, though, this took the prize, for most awkward moment in a history of awkward moments.

He cleared his throat. “So. Uh… back from the dead?”

“So they tell me,” Buffy shrugged.

She set down her diet soda. The quiet clink of glass on coaster was the only sound until Willow bustled into the room, smiling too brightly. “Everyone happy? I can make cocoa. Or, well, you don’t drink cocoa. Do you like the, um, you know?” She mimed drinking. “It’s okay?”

Angel smiled and lifted his mug. “Just fine.”

It was microwave-warmed pig’s blood, still tasting of the foam container from the butcher’s. He wasn’t hungry.

A soft ding sounded from the kitchen. “Oh that’s the cookies. Just, you know… am I hovering? I don’t mean to hover. Just take your time. Socialize. I’ll be nearby if you need me.” Willow waved at them as though she could urge them into more conversation with wind and hurried off.

“Is Willow feeling guilty?”

That woke Buffy from her daze. “Huh?”

Angel tilted his head toward the kitchen. “She’s baking.”

“Oh.” Buffy shrugged again.

He wanted to tell her how much he missed her. He wanted to throw his arms around her. There’d been the stiffest of all possible hugs when he first came in, that turned into an impossibly strong, needy cling on his part that embarrassed him. And now… it would be weird.

Buffy was weird. She was distant, distracted. He didn't know what he expected, but whatever their separation had been to her, it wasn't the loss he'd felt. He'd expected... something mutual. Despair or hope, either, both.

“You didn’t tell me,” he said.

“What?” She blinked at him, earnest, paying attention now.

“That you were back. I… I’m glad you’re back.”

“Sorry. Didn’t really enter my mind. I’ve been busy. Things have been… busy.”

Angel nodded. “I understand. The detective agency is keeping me, um, busy.”

Two excruciating hours later he stood on the porch, receiving a hug from Willow and a polite smile from Tara.

His own momentous news was unmentioned. It just hadn’t seemed right to bring up: the baby pictures burned a hole in his back pocket.

He turned to find Spike leaning against the palm tree in the yard and had to scowl quickly to cover up the slight start the bastard gave him.

Uncharacteristically, Spike looked serious. He tapped ash off his cigarette and nudged his chin toward the house. “How is she?”

Not knowing how to answer that question, much less how to answer it to _Spike_ , Angel stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away.

He heard Spike mutter, “Prick,” and grind out his cigarette. When Angel reached his car and glanced back, Spike was standing there, leaning against the tree, watching the lights of the house.

When he thought about it later, Angel would agree that this was probably the moment at which the very terrible idea started forming in his mind.

***

“She’s… depressed. Muted.”

“The bloom is off the Barbie doll. Tragedy,” Cordelia said without a hint of sympathy. She made a circuit of the room, picking up towels and blankets.

“Come on, Cordy. The girl returned from the dead. It’s… well, it’s creepy. No one knows how to act, and she can tell. I don’t know what to do for her. There’s nothing I can do. It’s like, when I heard she died, I knew how to react. I grieved. Now, it’s almost like grieving in reverse, only… that would be happy. And this isn’t.”

Cordelia pressed a laundry basket into his hands. “If you have to brood, brood doing laundry.”

“But Buffy…”

“Not really a part of your life, or your responsibility. Wake up and smell the baby powder. Or do I have to get Wes down here to re-enact the Love of All Time?”

Angel grimaced. “It’s not that. I’m… okay. Laundry.”

Work made him feel better. It always did. Movement and purpose. Separating lights and darks, measuring out the powder. Filling the extra little cup with baby-safe bleach for the whites. Angel liked his whites white, darn it.

He also liked the myriad baby-smells, the powder and the spittle. You’d think he’d hate it, but he didn’t. The stink was _his_ baby stink, and that made it wonderful.

He emptied the drier of a load of Cordy’s dark pants and skirts. Cordy was wonderful, kicking his butt into gear. As he cleaned the lint filter, he thought, Buffy needs someone like Cordy, someone to talk sense to her and kick her back into life.

And as he dropped the ball of lint in the trash, he had the terrible idea, and he cursed because he couldn’t come up with a way to talk himself out of it.

How, exactly, one went about contacting annoying pains in your ass who lived in cemeteries and didn’t have cell phones was beyond Angel, and so his terrible idea held little hope of reaching fruition, which was all right by him. He, quite frankly, had a life, and Wes assured him that Buffy was just experiencing very common post-resurrection depression, brought on by the meaninglessness of an unending existence, and would snap out of it on her own.

(He didn't want to know how many cases of "post-resurrection depression" were documented by the watcher's council. Couldn't _some_ things be unique experiences?)

Still, when the laundry was done and the hotel tidied up and little Connor snug in his crib, and when Cordy went home and Lorne went out and the phone messages were all caught up, he called.

“Summers residence,” the bored teenaged voice answered.

“Hi, Dawn.”

Dawn sounded irritated. “Oh, it’s you. Buffy’s not here.”

“Woah, hey, what makes you think I wasn’t calling to talk to you?”

“Because you weren’t.”

“Okay, fair enough. How is she?”

“All she talks about anymore is money and what I should be doing – school, keeping the house clean. She thinks she’s my mother! When she was my age, she ran around doing whatever she wanted.”

“You know that’s not true. She was the chosen one.”

“She was dating you!”

It’s an unexpected mule-kick of memory. Buffy, Dawn’s age, innocent and sweet, even with a killer’s power in her hands. Angel was struck silent.

Dawn continued, “By any rights I should be dating Spike.”

He sputters. “Woah. Woah, wait.”

“I’m not, I’m just saying, if she could date you when she was my age, then I should be allowed to go out with a perfectly normal non-vampire boy.”

“Aaaah. So there’s a boy.”

“God, you sound so smug and adult.”

“Sorry, I kind of am.”

“So is everyone around me. You know, they’re not that much older than me. Why is it always ‘but who will watch Dawnie?’”

“They just want you to have a normal life.”

“In a normal life the basement wouldn’t be flooded and I wouldn’t have to worry about vampires if I’m out too late.” There was a sound of something brushing the plastic receiver, a couch-cushion groaning. “We should move away from here.”

Angel shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure Buffy can afford to move right now.”

“Yeah.”

They were both silent a bit, and it was as close to companionable as Angel had felt in a long time. He cleared his throat. “So, about Spike…”

“Jeeeez. I don’t know what you have against him, I mean, you’re a vampire, too.”

“He doesn’t have a soul, Dawn. You can’t trust him.”

“Try that one with a vampire who hasn’t saved my life a couple times. And babysat me.”

“Listen you aren’t… I mean, you aren’t really interested in him, are you? That was just a dig at me?”

There was a silence longer than Angel liked. Dawn hummed a little, and he knew then she was just torturing him. “Dawn!”

She sighed. “No, not really. I mean, maybe at one time, but now? It would kind of be like kissing my brother.”

"Oh, that's..."

"A really HOT brother," Dawn muttered.

"Dawn!"

"Kidding! Mostly."

Angel sank back in relief, supporting his head with one hand. That was one issue moved happily into the ‘not a problem’ stack. He hadn’t realized how anxious Dawn’s tease had made him. “Good, that’s good. Look, I actually wouldn’t mind talking to Spike some time. Could you give him my number? I’m sure he doesn’t have one.”

“Oh… kay. Color me surprised.”

“It’s not a big deal. I just have… uh… vampire business to talk about.”

“Uh huh. And now it’s edging toward creepy.”

“And Dawn? Vampires, even soulled ones, are trouble to date and no one, no one!, should think of dating them.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, and Angel hung up knowing he wasn’t going to be listened to.

***

Cordelia came into the bedroom, where Angel was feeding Connor. She had a very confused look on her face. “Spike is on the phone for you.”

“Oh,” said Angel.

Cordy put her hands on her hips. “He’s _singing_.”

Angel looked down at Connor, who was blinking his eyes – such gorgeous eyes with such big soft lashes! He looked back at Cordy, hip cocked, eyebrow raised. “Uh… is that a metaphor or something?”

Cordelia picked up the bedroom handset and held it with thumb and forefinger before her.

From it, he heard a familiar voice in unfamiliar strains, “Aaaaangel. Aaaaangel. I can’t believe I’m soddin’ calling Aaaangel! Must be outta my mind.”

Angel looked from the dangling handset to Cordelia. “That sounds… kinda Broadway.”

“Yeah. He just burst into song after a few ‘put the poof on’s.” She waggled the phone at him. “Make it stop!”

Angel set the bottle down and shifted Connor to his shoulder. The baby started to fuss and Cordy lifted him into her own arms, resuming the feeding while Angel set the phone to his ear. “Uh… Spike?”

“Oh thank fuck. It’s stopped again. Look, don’t know how long I have before another melody hits me and it’s sodding embarrassing, Peaches. So quick – tell me anything you got on demons that turn towns into Mary Fuckin’ Poppins.”

“Uh… let me check with Wesley, see if there are any leads.”

“Great. Yeah, throw watcher boy at it. Gimmie a call at this number – it’s a pay phone. Ring three times, hang up, and then dial again. I can hear it from my crypt.”

“Sure. That works.”

“Look, Angel, I… I never told yooooo…”

The phone clicked off in a hurry, the dial tone replacing whatever serenade Spike was about to treat him with.

Angel and Cordy looked at each other. He shook his head and returned the phone to its cradle.

Cordy was patting Connor’s back, getting him to burp, a towel drapped over her shoulder. “I’m so glad I got out of Sunnydale.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Brooding and massive amounts of Daddy Angel with Baby Connor cuteness! We are talking weapons-grate cute, here! I couldn't resist, forgive me.
> 
> Also, Spike calls Angel for unexpected advice.

Angel sat in his office, brooding. He had nothing else to do while they waited for Fred to get back with her… science… thing. Lorne had pushed him away from Cordelia’s bedside, and taken Connor too, admonishing him to get some rest. He didn’t want to get some rest. He wanted to either have something to do, some way to fix it, or to stay at her side, holding her hand.

Cordy was in a coma, brought on by her visions. Visions he’d relied on and which were killing her. Which made it all his fault. Even if it wasn’t. He couldn’t escape the feeling of guilt and helplessness.

He rubbed his thumb back and forth on the edge of a photo. Cordy holding Connor, looking so happy, so healthy.

The phone rang. Angel picked it up listlessly. “Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless?” His voice almost cracked: the stupid tag-line made into something beautiful, timeless, haunting, just because Cordy picked it out.

“Hey, git. Ever get your mind wiped?”

The voice was alien to him for a moment and he said the name out loud just as it came to him. “Spike.” Angel leaned back in his chair. “I don’t have time for this right now.”

“It’s bugging the brains right out of me. The witch cast this big memory-wiping spell on us, see, and I had no idea I was even a vampire. Don’t you think you’d know? And as far as evil intentions, well, mate…”

“Spike, why are you bothering me? Cordelia’s in a coma. She had a vision, which means someone, somewhere is in trouble, and there’s nothing I can do about it because she lost consciousness before she could tell us. She said it was a teen-age girl. That’s all we got before she fell. A girl is in trouble and there’s nothing I can do.”

There was a momentary pause. “Yeah. Sorry to hear that, Peaches. You know, times are rough everywhere. Did I tell you Dawn went out necking with a fledge?”

Angel wondered why he didn’t just hang up the phone. Maybe it was just something to pass the time, being annoyed at Spike. “No.”

“Yeah. Damn near got her foolish little head bitten right off. Don’t worry, the grabby little bastard’s dust now.”

Spike said this very smugly, and Angel wondered if he’d done the job himself, and if so, if he’d had the grace not to do it directly in front of Dawn. Angel guessed not.

Spike was still talking, not that Angel had been paying attention. He put his ear back to the receiver. “…and that’s when I ended up a couple litters shy to Micky the Shark. Humiliating. ‘Course Buffy had to be there when he came to collect.”

“Spike? I don’t care. I don’t care about any of this. Your problems… they seem _cute_ compared to what I’m going through.”

“Cute? You call it cute when a loan shark’s breathing down your neck and a trigger-happy witch has you not knowing your fist from your elbow.”

“I have people to take care of, Spike. I gave you my number so we could talk about serious problems, about Buffy, not your gambling debts.”

There was a sullen pause. “If you’d let me get through my story. Wasn’t calling about that. I was calling about the memory thing, right? And… sod it, this is embarrassing. When I didn’t have my memory, and I found out I was a vampire…. Anyway, I thought, I don’t know. I thought we could talk about it, all right? About the capital-E evil and… you know… the soul.”

“The soul?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have one.”

Spike’s response was snide. “Oh, you can tell over the phone now?”

Angel scooted forward, to the edge of his seat. “Uh… you don’t… have one, do you?”

The pause might have only been a second, but to Angel it felt interminable. Then Spike let out a slow breath that turned into a chuckle. “Bloody hell no! Me with a soul! That’d be a slap and a tickle, wouldn’t it? And why the fuck would I need to call you and ask about it if I had one of my own all shiny and new to tell me these things?”

There was a soft knock and Gunn poked his head in the office door. “Fred’s back,” he said.

Angel nodded mutely and Gunn disappeared. “Uh, Spike? I have to go.”

“Sure, duty calls and all. But, seriously, mate, call me later? It’s giving me a sore head.”

“Sure.” Angel stood. “Oh, before I go, how did the, um, singing thing turn out?”

“What, Wes didn’t tell you? Thought Willow filled him in. Turns out, Xander did it. Talk to you later, Peaches.”

Angel was left with a confused expression on his face, holding the receiver and listening to dial-tone. He blinked, hung up, and went to face Fred and the hopefully good news.

All things considered, it felt good to have gotten his mind off his problems, for a moment. Spike with a soul? Now that was a frightening idea.

***

Angel woke early that Monday, just a little after Connor did. Sometimes it worked like that – he’d hear, in his sleep, the baby’s heart-rate change, and wake up almost before his little lungs expanded for his first cry. He was on his feet before he knew why, and at the crib-side before he was fully awake, picking up Connor, smelling that he needed his diaper changed.

Connor was a wet, warm little bundle of life this morning, and he settled down quickly once he was on the changing table. He watched Angel with wide, fascinated eyes, little hands wavering, imperfectly trying to catch hold of Angel’s sleeve as he worked over him.

“Here we go,” Angel said, rolling Connor’s sleep-shirt up his little belly. “Wew… oh god. Lucky I have a super-human sense of smell.” He grimaced, flinging the soiled diaper into the diaper-pail as fast as vampiricly possible.

A little wrinkle formed on Connor’s brow, over his thin little eyebrows, a baby frown, while Angel wiped him clean. Angel almost ran and got the camera… but he couldn’t leave Connor on the changing table. He just looked so much like Darla it broke his heart!

Angel knew he was being a stereotypical new parent. It didn’t stop him from grabbing the camera as soon as he had a fresh bottle on the stove.

As always, Connor refused to co-operate and make the perfect face again, no matter how long Angel spent hanging over him, cooing, wiggling his fingers, tickling his tummy. Still, he took a shot of Connor holding his foot – because who doesn’t love a picture of a baby holding his foot? And then found he’d over-boiled the formula and had to start over.

Cordelia rescued him from spoiling yet another bottle as he walked around the lobby, trying to get Connor to stop crying. He was hungry. Angel knew he was hungry. But the bottle had to be warmed.

Those big, wide eyes! That little fist crammed in his mouth, shiny with drool! And that heart, beating so fast, so loud, pulsing in his hands in such a fragile bundle of tissue.

At last he was settled in Angel’s arms, making happy feeding baby noises and hitting the sides of the bottle with his closed baby fists. How long before he could hold it himself?

“Well, you’re happy this morning,” Cordelia said. She brought a stack of mail and magazines to the reception desk.

Angel raised his brows. “Not too happy.”

“Easy, tiger. I wasn’t worried.” She slipped a magazine out of the stack and started to flip through it. “Day two of being part-demon done with and I don’t notice any new weirdness. Except my toothpaste tasted funny. But that just might have been Dennis bringing me orange juice in bed.” She flipped a page. “Poor guy, he was really worried about me.”

“I was worried too,” he said, and he wanted to put his arms around her, but, well, he was holding a baby.

She looked up, and looked sadly at him. “I know,” she said. “It was very sweet. The hand-holding and the near tears, even that bit about being angry at me.”

“You… saw that.”

She went back to her magazine. “I saw everything.”

For a while there was just the quiet sound of magazine pages flipping. “Lorne said… he said you weren’t in there.”

“Yeah, I saw that too.” Flip. “Some mystical seer he turned out to be.”

He checked the bottle. Just about halfway, and Connor was showing no signs of wanting a break or a burp.

He felt a little pride that his son could already drink a whole bottle. He wanted to check the baby books and see if that was ahead of schedule. He bet it was.

"I'd say I'm looking forward to life getting normal around here, but I'm not that naive," Cordy said.

“It’s almost too good,” he said. “You’re better, you’re safe. I never have to see you in pain over a vision again. We’re… we’re doing good.”

With a little hiccup, Connor finished his bottle. Angel transferred him to his shoulder and started bouncing in his steps gently, urging a burp.

“Yeah, now if only the phone would ring so we could get some paying customers! Baby formula ain’t cheap, you know.”

The phone rang.

Cordelia looked up. “If only Jude Law would walk into the lobby!”

A second, a ring, and she muttered, “Worth a shot… Hello! Angel Investigations, we help the helpless! Excuse me? Uh, no… no. He’s busy. Yup, pretty sure. No… eeew.” Cordelia put her hand over the receiver. “It’s Spike. He says he can hear you ‘looming’.”

Angel shook his head. “It’s okay, Cordy. I… was actually going to call him.”

Cordelia’s eyebrows shot up.

Angel shrugged. “It’s a Buffy thing. Can you take Connor?”

“Absolutely. Think I’m getting the better end of this deal.” She traded the phone for a armful of recently fed, sleepy baby.

“Who’s Connor?” Spike abruptly asked, the minute the receiver was against his ear.

Angel scowled. Good-bye, good mood. “Connor is none of your business.”

“Right then. Glad to hear Princess made it through her ordeal.”

“What?”

“Cordy, you git. You were bawling your eyes out over her two days ago. At which point, I seem to recall someone saying they were going to call _back_.”

Angel and Cordy glanced at each other and rolled their eyes in sync. Cordy mouthed, “Nap time” and carried Connor up the stairs.

“Look, Angel…”

Angel sat down at the desk. He knew it must be serious if Spike was going to deign call him by his proper name. “Yes?”

“It’s a crisis of conscience, all right? Or maybe a crisis of not-a-conscience, since you lot seem to think I haven’t got one. Maybe just the chip making me soft. I know you don’t care, but who else would understand? I didn’t try to hurt a one of them, Angel. I didn’t even think of it. No soul, no memory to tell me about the chip.”

Angel rubbed a hand over his forehead. “You’re telling me, _me_ , that you’re worried you’re not evil enough?”

“Don’t take the piss, Angel. It’s all head-games over here. With the slayer, with the witches… even droopy boy has some sort of passive-aggressive thing going with his demon girl.”

“All right,” Angel said. “We’ll do this. We’ll talk. But not over the phone.”

“Wait… what? You want to meet? Sit down and talk about our feelings where we can actually see one another?”

Angel couldn’t help smiling. “Scared? I can be in Sunnydale in three hours.”

He heard Spike mutter, “Bloody Hell”, and took that as a yes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, people haven't exactly been clamoring for more of this, but of course I can't help but enjoy a little Spike and Angel banter. It didn't /quite/ turn out the way I intended.

Angel pulled the Plymouth up to the curb outside Restfield Cemetery and looked through the wrought-iron fence. The corner of his mouth went up.

Spike – an easy spot to notice twenty yards off thanks to his neon head – had just kicked another vampire in the chest. And he was gesturing, waving his stake around, emphasizing some point while the fledge jumped back on her feet and ran at him.

Angel hopped over the closed car door and eagerly took hold of the fence, vaulting himself over and landing in time to see the fledge fall into dust.

Spike brushed his hands together. “Wasting my time,” he said, tucking his stake back in his pocket. “The old git probably isn’t even going to…” he glanced up and saw Angel. “Show.” He shifted his duster forward on his shoulders. “Hullo, Peaches.”

Angel grimaced. “Don’t call me that. I drove three hours to help you with your existential crisis.” He tucked his hands in his pants pockets and tried not to smile. Spike was… nervous! The anxiety was coming off him in waves.

Spike ran a hand over his hard shell of hair (like it could possibly be out of place). “Bloody hell, I can’t do this sober. Come on.”

Angel stayed where he was as Spike turned toward a row of mausoleums. “I’m not getting drunk with you.”

“More for me.”

Angel followed him into one of the larger crypts. He stopped as he stepped down into the low doorway and found the interior much larger than it looked from outside. Then he noticed the easy chair, television, and the over-all Spike smell to the place. “You’re living in a crypt?”

Spike was looking over bottles on a makeshift shelf. He raised an eyebrow. “It’s post-modern vampire, you berk. Self-referential. Ironic. And the Sunnydale cops aren’t evicting vagrants in the cemeteries unless they’re suicidal.” He selected a bottle and turned, gesturing toward the two sarcophagi. “It’s sit here or downstairs on the bed. And no offense, mate, I’m not letting a bloke down into the bedroom.”

Angel scooted up onto the high stone slab and tried to make himself comfortable. Spike leaned against the opposite tomb and raised the bottle to his lips. Angel said, “It’s funny, you’re so afraid of doing anything ‘poofy’ when you and I have actually had sex.”

Spike’s cough and sputter as he quickly lowered the bottle was slightly less than the spit-take Angel was hoping for, but it was funny, nonetheless.

Spike put the bottle down on the sarcophagus behind him and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “That’s the whole bloody point, isn’t it?”

“Sex with me?” Angel frowned.

“No!” Spike smirked, his “I’m so bloody clever and you’re not” smirk. “Get off it, Angel. I mean Angelus. Is he you? Are you him? I mean, you say ‘we’ but sometimes you talk like he isn’t you. Is the soul…?” He gestured vaguely up and down at Angel.

Angel sighed. “I didn’t come here to talk about my soul.”

“Nooo. You came to talk about having sex with me.”

“That’s not…” Angel winced, not wanting to get in a loop over this. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’ve been thinking for a while, now, about, well, Buffy, and what’s best for her.”

Spike’s semi-amused expression withered into pure scorn. “Come to warn me off?”

Angel felt his back teeth clench. “I know you think you love her.”

“Do I?” Spike snatched his bottle and jumped up onto the sarcophagus, looking at Angel at a more equal level. “All this time, I thought Angelus’ whole ‘we do not love’ schtick was a lot of hot air and an excuse to lay into me. But you really believe that. Sorry old sod, you never loved anyone before the soul? Not even Darla?”

“You couldn’t understand, Spike, if I tried to explain it to you. But I’m not denying you feel something, and what you call love is loyal and steadfast. I’ve seen you behave… in almost good ways for love.”

“Almost good?” Spike laid his hand on his chest. “You do lay on the praise.”

“Spike, I’m telling you I trust you not to kill Buffy.”

“That’s some powerful trust, Peaches, given I can’t even think about killin’ some pillock on the street without a migraine.” Spike pointed at him with the hand holding his bottle. “The only reason I agreed to talk to you was because of this soul thing. You leave Buffy out of this or I’m going to have to pound you. The chip doesn’t care bollocks for your soul.”

Angel spread his hands. “What ‘soul thing’? You lost your memory and failed to have evil thoughts.”

Spike looked down, twisting the bottle in his fists. “What if it’s changing me? What if this ‘behavior modification’ gizmo has me turned into Pavlov’s dog?”

“Don’t be stupid.” Angel slid off his sarcophagus. “You were never very good at being evil.”

“Oi! Slayer of Slayers, here!”

Angel rolled his eyes and took a step toward Spike. “There. That’s the difference a soul makes, Spike: I make a compliment; you see it as an insult.”

Spike dropped to his feet at Angel’s approach, chin up, chest out. “You never respected me.”

Angel bit his lip, and looked up at the ceiling, gathering what calm he could not to answer in the affirmative. “I respect you, Spike,” he said. It came out flat and false.

Spike snorted. He pushed past Angel and dropped into his ratty lounge chair. There was no reflection on the blank TV as he drank his whiskey.

“Why do you do this?” Angel asked. “Is it just me, or do you throw temper tantrums with everyone?”

“Do you have any idea, do you, what it takes for me to humble myself before the great Angelus and ask for help? Prick,” Spike muttered the last word into the mouth of his whiskey bottle.

Angel thought about his horrible idea and grimaced. “I can imagine.”

The sincerity must have startled Spike, because his head popped up over the back of the arm chair, blue eyes all wide and innocent-looking.

Angel walked in front of Spike and found a spot to lean against the wall where it wasn’t too filthy. “I do respect you, Spike,” he said. “When I heard you had come to Sunnydale, that first time? I was scared for Buffy. Terrified, and guilty, because she was in danger from something I had helped create.”

Spike frowned. He glanced behind himself, where Angel had stood before. He settled back into the chair and pointed with the bottle. “Who are you and what have you done with Angel?”

Angel smiled and tilted his head back.

“No, this ain’t funny, mate. You not being a complete bastard always means something horrible… wait…” Spike cocked his head. “Angelus?

Angel scowled. “If I was Angelus, I’d be asking you to kill Buffy, probably with a few digs at how you haven’t been able to so far. I wouldn’t be asking you to find out what’s wrong with her.”

Spike sank lower in his chair. “Know what’s wrong with her.”

“Oh.” Angel straightened away from the wall. “That was easier than expected. What is it? What can we do?”

“We? ‘We’ don’t do anything.” Spike sighed. “Not anymore. No, look. Slayer’s just depressed. She had a pretty horrid blow, getting yanked out of sodding heaven, so it’s natural. If people would just step back and give her time instead of crowding around trying to bloody ‘fix’ her…”

“Wha- hold it! Heaven?”

Spike looked up. “Yeah.”

The vampires looked at each other in silence until Angel cleared his throat. “That’s…”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Angel cleared his throat again, suddenly unsure where to look. “I was going to ask you to, you know, spend more time around her. I think she needs…”

“What? A bloody good shag?” Spike laughed as he spoke.

“No!” Angel scowled. “Irritation.”

Spike squinted. “You want her to be irritated?”

Angel had to turn away from Spike and his irritating face. He paced. “I was thinking about Cordelia, and how she keeps me focused, keeps me tied to the world. And, in a weird, annoying way, you’re sorta… like her.”

“Me? What have I in common with Princess Gorgeous Tits?”

Angel stopped pacing. He stepped up to Spike, who of course refused to back down, so they ended up chest-to-chest. “I don’t get it, Spike. I’m here, actually trying to communicate in a friendly fashion, and god knows why because you’re still evil, and all you do is make things more difficult.”

Spike tilted his chin up. “Then why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?” He grabbed Angel’s arm. “It isn’t to dispense sirely advice and it sure as hell isn’t to ask me to spend more time around your ex.”

Angel so, so wanted to just get into a fight, right this moment. But he bit his lip. “This is about what’s best for Buffy, Spike. Not about what you want, or what I want.”

Spike gave him a sideways look, not believing him, but let him go.

“I’ll see you around,” Angel said. “Just… well, call me. If there’s a reason to call me.”

Spike grabbed his arm just before he stepped out the door. He turned, shocked to see a very earnest expression on his face. “The soul. Tell me the truth, Angel? Are you the same person, inside as that evil bastard? Or is he gone forever? Is it… is it a bit like dying? Does it completely change you?”

“It wouldn’t be a curse if it did.” Angel said, and stepped out into the night.

He checked his watch by the streetlight. It hadn’t taken so long. There was still time to stop by and see Buffy before he headed back to LA. He got into the car and thought about Connor, about leaving him alone all night, with only Cordy. Okay, and Lorne. And Gunn and Wes. Okay, maybe he was a little over-protective.

As he pulled away from the curb, he glanced back and saw Spike, standing outside his crypt, just staring at him, still as the carved mourners on his tomb.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! More Angel excitement. Still PG, still no pairing.
> 
> In this chapter, Angel has a heart-to-heart with Buffy.

The porch light was on at Buffy’s house, casting moving shadows across the lawn as two figures walked back and forth. Angel killed his engine and rolled quietly up to the curb, not wanting to disturb them. He checked the clock. It was one a.m..

Dawn leaned over the porch railing, a dark red bath towel in her hands, she shook it over the rhododendrons and then stopped, mid-shake, staring at him. “Angel! What are you doing here?”

“Angel?” Buffy peered over her sister’s shoulder, mashing her hands in a cloth.

Found out, Angel raised a hand. The girls watched him with mixed perplexity (mostly Buffy) and enthusiasm (mostly from Dawn) as he came up to the porch. “Hi,” he said, and that hung in the air awkwardly while Dawn draped the towel she was holding over the rail. She gave him a hug – still going up on tip-toes like she used to though now she was nearly as tall as he was.

“Did you bring me a present?”

Angel smiled and patted her back. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Oh yeah,” Buffy said. She gestured helplessly. “Dawn, really… you should go… get cleaned up, sleep. I shouldn’t… I’m a terrible guardian.”

“Like I’m going to complain about being allowed to stay up late,” Dawn said. “I’m not twelve, you know.” She kissed Angel’s cheek. “It’s good to see you. Better when you bring presents, but good anyway.”

Angel watched fondly as Dawn skipped off into the house. “Wow,” he said. “She’s just… so innocent, still. I mean, all that’s happened and Dawn still sees the world so simply. It’s wonderful, don’t you think? That she can still be a little girl?”

Buffy was silent. He turned to face her. She looked… worn down. Hair frizzy and coming out of her ponytail holder, a smudge of brown on her nose. Yet she had been in heaven. He wondered at even being on the same front porch as someone who had seen heaven. “What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” She looked down at the rag in her hands and turned it over, as though unsure what it was or what to do with it.

“No, come on. What?”

Buffy shrugged. She tossed the rag onto a wicker chair. “Just… you and I met when I was Dawn’s age.”

Angel frowned, confused. “And…” His eyebrows rose. “Oh. You think… Uh…” he coughed.

Buffy sighed and followed her dish-rag onto the wicker chair. “No, I don’t think you were just attracted to me because I was sixteen and naïve.” She lifted and straightened the edge of the rag. “At least I sure hope that wasn’t it.”

“No!” Angel said quickly. “No, not at all. In fact… uh, that would be kind of creepy. I just have this new perspective, lately, on, er, the young.” He scratched the back of his head and looked at the car. “I know what it’s like to have responsibility for someone, you know, someone… innocent, and young. It’s…” wonderful? Horrible? Both? He shrugged.

“Please. Like you’ll ever be a legal guardian.”

“Heh. Funny thing…” Angel started to smile but Buffy’s blank look stopped him. He fished his wallet out and unfolded the accordion of baby photos with practiced ease. “Here. That’s… well, that’s Connor.”

He peered over her as she looked over the photos, re-visiting each of them himself. “That… well, I know that’s not a good one. But he’d just had his bath… oh! And that’s Cordy’s arm. And that’s Lorne’s arm… you haven’t met him, but you’d like him. He’s… very green.”

It suddenly occurred to him that he had a lot of pictures of the arms and chests of his closest friends.

Buffy handed the wallet back limply. “You adopted a baby.” She sounded disbelieving and a little horrified, like it was a terrible thing to do.

“He’s mine!” Angel held the wallet to his chest as if to soothe it. “Connor is my son. It… it’s a long story. There was a prophecy and, er, some magic.”

“And a woman,” Buffy said, only a little bitterly. “Unless…” she waved at his midsection. “This wasn’t, like…”

“No! No.” Angel took a step back and felt the porch railing against him. “It was Darla. She was a vampire. Uh… you met her.” Angel grimaced, wondering why he felt so embarrassed all of a sudden. He hurriedly put his wallet back in his back pocket. “I didn’t mean to… I mean, I didn’t come here to talk about this. But I did want you to know. I wanted to… share it. Share Connor. He’s everything to me, right now.”

Buffy leaned back, her eyes on the streetlight behind Angel’s head. “Wow,” she said, unenthusiastically.

Angel raised his eyebrows, waiting for a greater response. Buffy was looking at her hands, picking at the cuticle on her left thumb.

Angel cleared his throat. “You know, it’s actually impossible for vampires to have kids. And Darla was dusted five years ago. I mean, I put a stake through her heart. So if you’re weirded out, it’s okay. This is pretty earth-shattering. Collosal, even.”

The longer Angel spoke to her silence, the stupider he sounded. He cleared his throat again and looked back at the Plymouth, sanctuary of chrome and black, just down the front walk.

At last Buffy spoke, slowly and carefully. “However you want me to respond, I’m not going to. I don’t know if I can even respond at all. My own life feels like… feels like someone else’s. Yours? Might as well be a TV show aimed at a demographic called ‘not me’.”

Angel squatted down, to be on eye level with her. “Buffy…”

“Sorry,” she said. She took his hands. “I’m very happy for you.”

“That’s not why I’m here. I wanted to talk about you, how you’re doing.”

Buffy laughed humorlessly and gestured at the house with her dirty rag. “Full copper re-pipe is how I’m doing.”

Angel had no idea what that meant, so he just waited for her to continue.

Buffy rubbed one cheek, as though she was about to cry, but she didn’t. “I clawed my way out of my grave and then… all these bills, and paperwork, and… and child services! The school! I never knew how much Mom did for us.”

She forced a small, pathetic smile, and lifted Angel’s hands in hers. “It wasn’t like that, for you, was it? When you came back to life. There weren’t bills to pay.”

Angel withdrew his fingers from hers and scooted back to sit on the porch floor. “I was evil, you know that. It wasn’t the same thing. Not anywhere near the same.”

“It feels the same,” Buffy said, looking off into the distance again. “I know, you’re going to tell me there’s no way I could know. When Spike… well, that was just after, but he _knew_. I looked at him, and he knew. Which was nice. It’s nice to have someone who understands.”

She looked at Angel and half-smiled apologetically. “You probably think I’m nuts.”

“I don’t.” Angel tried to work some moisture into his suddenly dry mouth. He coughed. “I, uh, I just came from talking to Spike, actually.”

“Why? What did he say? I… it wasn’t…” Buffy caught herself, brushed a lock of hair back and said. “Oh.”

Angel blinked. “Oh,” he said.

She scowled. “There is no ‘oh’. What ‘oh’? “

“’Oh’ as in, ‘you’re awfully worried about something Spike might have said.’”

“I’m not. He lies, you know. He’s evil. Evil people lie. All the time.”

Angel almost smiled. In vehement denial, Buffy was more like herself than he had seen her in a while. “Buffy, Spike told me everything.”

“He did?” Her eyes widened with alarm. She touched her lips. “Wait… you’re not mad?”

“Maybe a little. But Willow didn’t know what she was doing, pulling you out of… out of there.”

Was that relief in her eyes? Was she relaxing? Angel squinted at her, a little perplexed.

“I’m not mad,” she said. “Maybe I was for a bit, or now and then, a little, but… I don’t know. I can’t work myself up to mad lately.” She smiled a little.

Angel felt like he and Buffy were actually involved in completely different conversations, but he wasn’t sure. “Well, I want you to know, I’m glad you talked to Spike.”

Eyebrows straight up. She withdrew her hand from his. “Who are you and what did you do with Angel?”

“Hey, I still hate the guy!” Angel held up his hands. “And he’s evil and don’t trust him and if you accidentally stake him, I won’t mind. But…”

“That’s going to be one amazing ‘but’.”

Angel floundered. “But he’s smart… about people.”

Buffy smiled genuinely. “Do I get to tell Spike you paid him a compliment?”

“Please don’t.”

And then they both laughed at how distraught Angel looked.

Buffy stood, and Angel did too. She took his hand again. “I am all here,” she said. “People keep looking at me like they’re afraid I’m going to crack or grow a tail, but it’s just me. You don’t have to worry.”

“I know I don’t have to. I just enjoy it.” Angel smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Good night, Angel.”

“Good night.”

He stopped on the bottom porch step and turned around. “It was your strength. Your courage.”

Buffy looked up from gathering the towels and rags they had been laying out on the porch. “Huh?”

“What attracted me to you. Not… the innocence. The strength.”

Her features softened. “Thanks,” she said.

He nodded and walked to the car.

As he fished his keys out, he felt something – that little prickle that meant someone was watching. He sighed and turned. Spike was just behind the oak tree in the neighbor’s yard. “Getting a good stalking in, Spike?”

Spike stepped out into the streetlight. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t upset her”

His hands were in his pockets, his gaze defiant, protective.

Angel shook his head. “You don’t have to protect Buffy from me.”

“Don’t I? You can hurt her, you berk. Worse than I ever could. Because she loves you.”

Angel bit his lip. “Good night, Spike,” he said, and got into the car. “Keep an eye on her.”

He couldn’t say he didn’t know Spike, and know him well, but heaven would burn before he understood him.

Still, it was a shame he was evil. Angel glanced back once more, as he stopped at the end of the street and saw Spike smoking a cigarette, on vigil. Damn if the evil bastard wouldn’t be good for Buffy. If, you know, he wasn’t evil.

Angel felt a lot of contradictory things at once, his thoughts jumbled, unsure if he’d accomplished anything at all, he turned toward the highway and let his thoughts turn toward home again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Valentine's Day! (sorta) And so Angel is out on a date!
> 
> Naturally, nothing goes right for him. :D

It had taken some maneuvering to get Cordy alone for dinner. Some maneuvering and reservations at a place a new parent really shouldn’t try to afford. But at least Cordelia hadn’t mentioned Groo all the way from the hotel to their table.

Angel sighed and opened the menu, looking for something that didn’t cost as much as a Buick. This was good. He could do this.

“Isn’t it great that Groo is back?” Cordy smiled, dazzling, like a toothpaste ad. “And for me, for his one true love. It’s so romantic!”

Angel tried to pry his white-knuckled hands off the edge of the table. “Yeah,” he said, “Great.” Oh, his teeth were gritting too.

“Angel?” Cordelia blinked at him. “Is something wrong? You’ve barely said four words since we got here! Are you reacting to the prices again? I told you, this is a perfectly reasonable restaurant for this day and age.”

“No! No. It’s fine. I’d pay a lot more, I mean, since it’s you. For you. Uh…” Angel cleared his throat and snatched up the menu, struggling to find something to be interested in. “Oh, look: sushi.”

He peeked over his menu to find Cordy regarding him calculatingly, her elbows on the table. Ut-oh. “It was unusually sweet of you to take us all out to dinner… and then no one else could make it.”

_Thank you, Lorne,_ Angel thought.

“No one at all. And Groo had to get inter-dimensional travel visas? All of a sudden? Why have I never heard about this before, what with all the dimension-hopping people do around here?”

“Uh, yeah. Too bad about that.” Angel felt his hands sweating. His hands were sweating? He was over two hundred years old! Anyway, the stupid dimensional DMV excuse was al Lorne’s doing, so let him bare the blame. “So… uh… how’s Dennis? I know he gets jealous when you bring… men… home.”

“Oh, please. Dennis _adores_ Groo.”

Cordelia was less suspicious-looking, but Angel couldn’t relax. “I’m sure it’s just the novelty,” he muttered. “I mean, anyone would like someone the moment they appear. But all that fantasy novel talk has to grate in a while. I mean, on the dead.”

Cordy raised an eyebrow at him. “Whatever. Dennis hung up Groo’s vambraces for him. I know approval when I see it.” She leaned forward. “Or when I don’t.”

Angel’s eyebrows leapt up. He was caught out, the restaurant menu, over-sized as it was, providing no cover. He needed a distraction. He needed….

Angel wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell bleach?”

“Oh what a lame attempt to change the subject. We are in a fine restaurant with wine-colored linens and hardwood floors. There is no way you smell blea…”

“Hello, Peaches,” Spike appeared out of nowhere, dragging a chair behind him which he pulled up to the table, backward, and then dropped himself in, legs spread around the chair back, arms crossed on the back.

Cordelia wrinkled her nose. “Oh. That kind of bleach.”

Angel scowled at the sudden interloper, then noticed the ficus by the wall still wavering. “Were you hiding behind the plant?”

Spike plucked the menu up from in front of Angel. “Hrm. No munchie section.”

Angel stood up from his seat, grabbing Spike’s arm on his way and dragged him, shouting “Oi! Mind the leather!” all the way to the front lobby of the restaurant where fashionable women waiting by the coat-check stared at them over their purses.

Angel kept pushing Spike into the men’s room, until they hit the back wall. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here!” In the mirror, an elderly attendant got up from his chair, stared a bit at them, and their lack of reflection, and ran out the door.

Spike shrugged out of Angel’s grip and made quite the show of checking his sleeve for damage before adjusting the lay of the coat on his shoulders. “Good to see you, too.”

“What the hell is this? Did Groosalug send you? And why do you smell like a gallon of chlorine bleach?”

“Okay, first off I don’t know who or what a ‘groosalug’ is. And as for the bleach, maybe I’m getting a tad tired of old grandsire’s nasal inspection.”

Angel raised one eyebrow, wondering if he’d stepped into an alternate reality. “You doused yourself in bleach because you didn’t want me to smell you?”

“Look, Angel…” Spike suddenly looked contrite. “I’m going about this all wrong. See, I’ve been thinking about what you said, last time you visited.”

“The soul thing?” Angel looked pained. “Not that again. I’m never talking to you about that again. I don’t care about your existential non-evil crisis or whatever it is. I shouldn’t have visited. It was the first and last time.”

“Yeah, well, you visited.” Spike took a step closer. His left hand raised, as though he was going to pull a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall. “And I finally realized, what it was you were trying to say.”

And then Spike’s hand landed on Angel’s shoulder, and Spike was pressing his lips to Angel’s.

His, admittedly, soft, supple lips that tasted so deliciously familiar, like returning to a home nearly forgotten. So Angel could forgive himself for not immediately reacting with shock and disgust. He couldn’t quite forgive himself, however, for opening his mouth, and even less for gripping the sides of Spike’s head and taking control of the kiss. And pressing their bodies together, reveling in the sense of control, of possession… that was really out of line. Probably. Mostly.

So Angel was feeling a bit frustrated since the ballet and that whole possessed-by-lovers thing.

About four seconds later his brain caught up with his hormones and he jumped back. “Woah! Woah! Spike? What the hell?” Angel wiped his mouth vigorously on the back of his hand.

And Spike was staring back at him, lips parted, brow furrowed in hurt. Yup, alternate dimension. This had to be Lorne’s fault. Or Wesley’s. Or both. Damn it, _they_ had told him to fight for Cordy’s affection!

Then Spike cleared his throat and seemed to hunch in on himself. “So, uh… guess I thought wrong, then.”

“What made you think I wanted you to interrupt me on a date and kiss me?”

Spike perked up a little. “You and the cheerleader?”

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t all a conspiracy.

“I went to talk to you, because I was concerned about Buffy. Because you are in a position to help Buffy. It had nothing to do with you.” Angel spoke like he was explaining an elementary fact to a very small child, “I. Don’t. Like. You.”

“But… you brought up the past. And… sex.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Because conversing with you on any topic is like wrestling an octopus. Go back to Sunnydale. NOW. Go bother Buffy. I am on a date. With a wonderful woman I have to woo away from a muscle-bound warrior who has great teeth and hair and no ‘soul-losing’ happiness clause, so I’m a little bit busy. Got it?”

Angel took in a breath, seeing Spike staring at him in shock. He smiled. It actually felt freeing, having his anxiety out loud like that.

“So it’s not a sure thing, you and the cheerleader?”

“Spike, so help me, if you are not out of here in the next five minutes, I will start punching, we will destroy the room, and I will never forgive you.”

Spike was looking at him with an infuriatingly smug expression. “No, Peaches. I’ll leave you to dig your own grave.”

“I happen to know a thing or two about romance, Spike.”

Spike slapped him on the shoulder. “It’s cute to see the inept try.”

“I’m more… ept than you. I’m here with a date, aren’t I? Seriously. I’m begging you. Go see Buffy. Talk to her about… life affirming things. How about how you almost wanted to kill yourself over the chip, but then you found a new purpose in life being completely annoying?”

Spike heaved a sigh and looked at the ceiling. “I came here to try and forget about Buffy, you great ignoramus. So ta ever so, stomping on my pain.”

“This talking is going nowhere.” Angel straightened to his full height and tried to be as looming as possible, taking full advantage of the height difference to make Spike look up at him. “You know what? Maybe you should go see a therapist about your ‘soul thing’.”

Instead of looking cowed, Spike had a very odd expression on his face. It was almost… wise. “Oh, mate, you have no idea.”

“It’s sad, realizing that Drusilla was the one keeping you together all these years. You couldn’t ever tie your shoes without a woman in your life. Seriously, get a girlfriend.”

Spike smirked, and made a dirty chuckle. “You’re going to kill me with irony. Heh. No idea at all.”

And with that Spike turned his back on Angel and sauntered out of the restroom, shaking his head all the way.

What was _that_ all about?

Angel waited a moment, not wanting to leave at the same time, and then regretted that decision as he hung around the lobby trying to make certain Spike had left.

He returned at last to the table to see Cordy leaning back in her chair, a glass of red wine in hand. “Tell me you staked him.”

Angel ducked his head, sheepish and feeling guilty about that kiss. “Spike… he’s harmless these days.”

“Cockroaches are harmless. That doesn’t stop me from stepping on them.”

“Actually, they do carry disease.”

She put down her wine glass with the finality of a judge’s gavel. “Bad fashion sense _is_ a disease.”

Angel nodded in acceptance. “Spike is a cockroach. I let him get away. But at least I chased him off?”

“Ugh. Right on top of my list of vampires I want to see burst into dusty remains. And there aren’t many vampires I _don’t_ want to see do that.”

Angel set his chin on his hand. “I hope there’s one.”

He was rewarded with one of her brilliant smiles. She picked up her glass again in toast. “You’ll always be my favorite vampire.”

Angel reached across the table. “You’ll always be my favorite person.”

Cordy set her fingertips on his and he briefly squeezed them. She said, “Which is why I know I can trust you to help me sort things out with Groo.”

Angel withdrew his hand across the table. “Cordy…”

“I know. You think he’s a little naïve, maybe you’re worried about the whole cultural differences thing… but honestly, Angel, if either of us is going to get hurt, it’s him. I’m a big girl. You can trust me. Oo! Here’s the food. I took the liberty of ordering.”

Angel sank back in his chair, suddenly wondering if a surprise Spike kiss was going to end up being the highlight of the evening.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Matchmaker! Feeling kinda domestic. Angel and Buffy get to talking about friendship. Connor does cute baby things.

It was quiet around the hotel since Cordelia and Groo had left on their vacation. Which was good. No, really. Quiet was good.

Connor was on his stomach on a baby blanket in the middle of the lobby floor, and very very nearly crawling. Well, at least his little arms and legs were wiggling. He looked at Angel and smiled, cackled a happy baby laugh.

Angel had a very small, but still too big for Connor, nerf hockey set, which he was wiggling around for Connor’s entertainment.

Not that he was going to be one of those parents that insufferably urged their kids into sports. No.

But it wouldn’t hurt if Connor was imprinted early with an appropriate love of hockey.

“Look at the pretty puck. Whee!” Angel batted the nerf-puck with the nerf-stick. It didn’t really go far. Connor’s eyes tracked the movement, his mouth closing into an interested “oo!”

Wayne Gretsky, here we come.

The phone rang. Angel sighed and straightened. He walked backwards to the desk, not wanting to take his eyes off of Connor. Yes, this was right. He didn’t need Cordelia, or any woman in his life. He had the love of his life right here, his son, future hockey star.

“Angel Investigations, we help the…”

“You told SPIKE he should date me?”

Angel opened his mouth, but no words came out in reply.

“YOU? The guy who went all possessive creepy ex on Riley? A man who, with all his faults, and I mean multiply ‘em by ten, was a saint compared to either of you?”

“Uh… Buffy?”

“No, it’s the Easter bunny. Honestly, Angel, what were you thinking? Were you thinking? He doesn’t need any encouragement!”

“I didn’t say that! I mean, I wasn’t encouraging… I…”

“I don’t think so. Spike was way, way too pleased with himself to be lying.”

“Well, okay… I can see how maybe he misinterpreted…”

“Oh god.”

“What?”

“No. It’s too obvious. I don’t even know why I called. You… never mind. I can almost picture the entire scene. An epic battle of tactless verses tact. This is the last thing I needed.”

Angel fumbled with the phone, carrying it over as far as it could go and setting it on the floor so he could pick up Connor, who was starting to fuss.

“Did he do something to you? Buffy? I’ll kill him. I swear if he hurt you…”

“Dial down the hero complex, I’m fine. Just annoyed. At you.”

“What happened?”

Buffy barked a loud laugh. “You, apparently, told Spike to date me.”

“I didn’t!”

“Oh, I’m sure you think you didn’t. Now Spike thinks he has your ‘blessing’ he’s driving me up the wall.”

“I told Spike he should be your friend! That you could benefit from each other, as friends.”

Buffy let out a short little laugh. “We’ll never be friends.”

There was something ominous about how she said it, like she was quoting something. Angel cradled the phone against his ear while he settled Connor against his chest. “Buffy?”

“Isn’t that what Spike said about me and you? We’ll never be friends?”

“Well, obviously he was wrong.”

“Was he?”

Angel shifted his weight. Connor’s chubby little hands slapped at the phone receiver. He was looking at it, probably thinking about putting it in his mouth. The hotel felt very empty and lonely around him. He shifted Connor further away from the phone. “I thought we were starting to get along.”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet, helpless. He got the distinct impression whatever this call was about, it wasn’t another unwanted advance by Spike.

“Look, the thing about vampires…”

“Angel, this had better not be about to turn into one of your lectures where you know what’s best for me.”

“Hey! How many times has that ever happened?”

“Enough.”

“I’m not sure you’re giving me a fair chance, Buffy. I mean, I know people who lecture all the time, and I’m not that guy.”

“Five hundred words or less.”

“What?”

“You’re going to tell me anyway, so go ahead. I’m just telling you: five hundred words or less. This is a long-distance call.”

Angel sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t even remember what I was going to say.”

“’The thing about vampires.’ Which I assume is actually ‘the thing about Spike’.”

“He really hasn’t done anything evil?”

The pause was just long enough to make him nervous. “Not unless you count acting like a teenager.”

“Being a vampire is kind of like being a teenager. I mean, emotionally you don’t grow up, you don’t have a reason to, so vampires kinda love like teenagers. You know, this isn’t what I was going to say, but it’s something like it. You have to give Spike a sort of leeway… not much! But he’s like that.”

Another long pause. “Buffy?”

She sighed. “It’s not like you think it is, between me and Spike.”

“How do I think it is?”

“Spike’s been here, okay? He’s been an annoying, sometimes helpful part of my life for two years now, and I don’t know if it’s sad or funny when you come in out of left field to let me know you think it’s okay for me to hang out with him when he’s been babysitting my sister all summer.”

“Ouch. Wait… babysitting?”

“That’s what it means to be friends, Angel. You help each other out, when you can.”

Connor’s fist, wet with spit, slapped Angel’s neck. He shifted again, taking the baby’s hand in his. “So… what you’re saying is, you’re already friends with Spike.”

“Um. Sort of.”

“And I’m not helping.”

Another sigh. “I know you mean well.”

“Well, thanks.” Angel snorted. Connor was squirming, wanting to be let down again. He hit the phone with his little fist and babbled.

“Woah. Was that…?”

“Yeah. Say ‘Hi’, Connor.”

Connor, of course, ceased all sound-making and only stared at his father in disbelief that he would make such a demand.

“Wow. He’s… well, I mean, I knew he was _real_ , but hearing him, it’s really… real.”

“Yeah, it’s really real.” Angel smiled. “So, can we be friends?”

“Hm… I don’t know. ‘Buffy the Vampire Friend’ doesn’t have that ring to it.”

“I’m trying. I really am. To be a better person. To be a person.”

“You know, Spike… kinda said something like that. Not those exact words. He asked me to help him, like not having a soul was just something he could work around.”

“Sounds like Spike.”

They were both quiet for a bit, but it was a companionable quiet. (It was strange how you could tell, over the phone.) Connor was resting again, big head heavy against Angel’s chest. It was a lot of work growing.

“You might be on to something with that teenager thing. Spike… he thinks he loves me, but he doesn’t understand what love is.”

“Teenage love. Like we were. It was all about passion and the emotion of the moment. People who are in that kind of love, no, they can’t be friends. Because that’s not the kind of love that lasts. Real love, forever love, starts as friendship. I’ve learned that now. I’ve grown a lot since leaving Sunnydale.”

“Because of Connor?”

“Well, yeah, Connor, and other people. Cordy.”

“Cordy? The woman who considers character depth wearing lip liner _and_ shimmer?”

“Hey, she’s not eighteen anymore, either.”

“So, is this how you started explaining to Spike that he and I should be buddies?”

“Look, Spike is still the teenager in this scenario. He doesn’t have a soul and that’s kind of like being eighteen.”

“That does explain Cordelia.”

“Buffy!”

She laughed, a real laugh.

Angel shook his head. “Cordy has had to deal with some pretty difficult things, the visions from the powers that be… they nearly killed her.”

“It’s almost harder for me to think of Cordy as responsible than to think of you with a baby.”

“I think she’d be okay with that.”

“So where is she?”

“Uh… out.”

“Wow. Excitement.”

“No, I mean, Cordelia’s on vacation. A week or two off with her new boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

“What ‘oh’?”

“Well, you kept talking about Cordelia’s all good now and Cordelia’s this and that…”

“And I sent her on a paid vacation with another man.” Angel ran a hand over his forehead. “It’s… the mature thing to do.”

“Sounds like the Angel thing to do, to me.”

“Is it?”

“Big with the self-sacrifice. You know, that’s not always the right answer.”

“Says the woman who killed herself.”

He didn’t mean for it to sound angry, but it did.

He heard her take in a slow breath. “Look, this call is getting really long…”

“Sorry, Buffy, I didn’t mean to bring that up. It…”

“No, it’s cool. I mean, this is my life, now. Post-dead. But maybe we should get together, okay? You should come to dinner, or something.”

“Like friends?”

“Yeah, like friends.”

“I’d like that, Buffy. I really would.”

Angel hung up the phone feeling slightly less alone, and slightly more sure he’d done the right thing.

“Doing the right thing,” Angel said, lifting Connor up and studying his big, quizzical eyes. “It doesn’t always feel good, Connor. But you know when you do it. You’re going to be a good guy, some day. I just know it. You’ll do the right thing.”

Connor’s response was in spit-bubble form, but Angel knew what he meant.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is : Chapter 7 of "Matchmaker"
> 
> Still PG.
> 
> It's a short chapter, but you'll understand why I just had to break where I did. (At least I hope you will!)

“So she says she wants to be friends, and I think… I think we really _can_ , now… and it makes me happy, it does. Makes me feel… adult.” Angel shrugged. “But it also scares me a little. Does that make sense?” He looked down briefly at his laced fingers, then to his friend with eyebrows raised pleadingly.

Lorne dropped the hand that was propping up his forehead and said, “Pumpkin, I told you I’m not talking to you.”

“Oh come on, Lorne!”

Lorne shook his head and determinedly flipped a page in the magazine he had been reading before Angel had plopped down beside him on the lobby sofa. “You wouldn’t listen to me when there was kyrumption on the line, why should I dispense the precious pearls of my wisdom now?”

“I had to consider what was best for Cordy, you know that.”

“Mmmhmmm.” Lorne raised his magazine higher. “Funny how ‘what’s best’ is always leaving the girl. Someone has issues.”

Angel stood up, sighing. “I’m a centuries-old vampire looking for redemption. Of course I have issues.”

“And I’m not listening to them,” Lorne assured, turning another page with more fluttering than necessary.

Angel rubbed his head. “I don’t even know what it is I’m asking.” He paused mid-pace and looked back at Lorne. “Um…”

“If you’re about to sing, plum-cake, I’m about to throw this at you.”

Angel coughed. “I wasn’t gonna… I mean…”

The baby monitor on the desk awoke with a soft noise, half a sigh, the beginning of a sob. Angel immediately dashed up the stairs.

“Oh thank god,” Lorne said, and tossed his magazine aside. He hadn’t been reading for half an hour, anyway.

Angel came down the stairs shortly after, Connor sniffling and hiccupping against his chest. He rushed straight past the counter and into the kitchenette where he had a small army of bottles of formula waiting, ready to be heated.

“shh, shh,” he bounced Connor lightly in his arms to distract him and keep that low whimper down to a whimper. It was like throwing sandbags against a failing levee, though – at any moment the flood of tears would break through.

But today the sandbags won, and Angel was relieved almost to exhaustion as he set the bottle – carefully tested with a thermometer because undead wrists just weren’t temperature-savy – in front of Connor and the baby happily latched on, his little fists clamping on to the bottle.

Angel could almost let go of it now, and tried, but every time the bottle would fall and he’d have to hold on again. “Hey Lorne! Look! Connor is almost holding the…”

Angel glanced up and saw the lobby empty.

On the sofa, where Lorne had been sitting, was a plain sheet of typing paper, on which was written, in purple magic marker, “Be a friend, Angel. That’s all there is to it.”

“Huh,” said Angel, and frowned. “Be a friend? What does that mean?”

Connor only looked back at him solemnly, still working busily at getting every ounce of milk out of the bottle.

Later, Gunn stopped by and asked if there were any cases, which there weren’t, and then asked if Angel wanted to go get dinner, and Angel politely reminded him he didn’t eat.

“You do sit there sometimes, though, when we eat. No one likes to eat alone, you know.”

Angel shrugged. “I’d love to, but Lorne’s not here and I can’t leave Connor alone.”

“It’s cool, man.” Gunn gave him one of his patented loose, easy handshakes, and left. Angel settled down with Connor to play nerf-hockey in front of the TV. (Extremely grateful that Cordelia had set it all up and showed him the channels that showed “old crap”, as she called it.)

Some channel-surfing and he’d found a Rat Pack flick. Excellent. Connor reached for the hockey stick and drew it close, eyes full of wonder in that baby-way.

“Do you want to play, huh?” Angel waggled the fluffy nerf-puck.

“Aw man, you are _not_ going to be all cute while I eat,” Gunn said.

Angel glanced up in shock as Gunn dropped into the easy chair next to him, a bag from Jack in the Box in his lap. He raised both eyebrows.

Then Angel realized that he had instinctively dropped to hide Connor from sight. He chuckled and got back into his chair. “Uh… I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“I told you. A brother likes a friend around when he eats. Even if you don’t eat, it’s friendly.” He waved his burger and settled back himself. “So, what are we watching?”

Angel smiled. “Robin and the Seven Hoods. Have you seen it?”

Gunn paused in eating his burger to give Angel a “Don’t’ insult me” smirk, and they settled down to watching the movie, talking occasionally about movies, Hollywood, babies, and both agreeing they were glad to live on the West coast.

Gunn was right, it was friendly to eat with someone – or be near them while they ate.

He called Buffy’s house after Gunn went home, and made a date for dinner with Dawn, who was more than happy to vouch for the family while Buffy was out patrolling. “We don’t see _anyone_ these days – it’s work, patrol, sleep. All work and no play makes Buffy an ogre.”

He whistled a happy tune as he cleaned up and put Connor down for the night (or as long as Connor would deign sleep; it was a good thing vampires didn’t actually need a full eight hours.)

Barring any apocolypse or sudden visions from Cordy (who had her cell phone in case one popped up), he would be sitting down to a friendly dinner at Buffy’s house come Saturday. It made him feel… normal.

Nice and normal. He sighed, laying on his side to watch Connor in his crib until sleep finally took him.

***

It rained Saturday, so Angel was able to leave early. Lorne was okay with that, having shown up early to baby-sit anyway.

And even though he wasn’t sure if leaving two hours before scheduled sunset was a good idea, the rain held up, dark and grey, half-way to Sunnydale, and slowly gave way to a clear dark sky with a bright moon. Traffic was light. Everything was going his way. He wasn’t even afraid of leaving Connor. No, this time he knew everything was okay, nothing would go wrong.

He hopped out of the car and bounded up to Buffy’s doorstep, a good bottle of Bordeaux in hand, no thought in his mind but how healthy, normal, and right it felt to be going out for a quiet evening with friends.

And then he heard something. A giggle, something like a rustle, a low, masculine chuckle, and “Not now! Come on.”

That was Buffy’s voice, and she sounded… happy. Happy and teasing and giggling and…

“Pet, whoever it is Bit invited over can’t be half as much fun as what I’ve got planned.”

A forty-dollar bottle of wine rolled across the porch, bounced down the steps, and crashed into a spreading red stain on the sidewalk. He didn’t hear it.

Angel also didn’t notice himself vaulting the porch railing and landing in the side lawn. All he noticed was Buffy, her back against the wall of the house, looking at him with her lips kiss-swollen and open in shock. Over her dark skirt a long-fingered white hand splayed possessively. A long-fingered white hand that lead up to a black leather sleeve that was a part of a black leather coat that was draped over Spike.

Spike, whose lips were looking pretty puffy himself, and bearing more than a trace of Buffy’s lipstick. Spike, whose mirroring shock was melting all-too-fast into smug amusement.

Spike, who hit the ground with a satisfactory “thunk” when Angel punched him.

And was, summarily punched himself, square on the jaw, same as he had punched Spike, and Angel fell in almost the same attitude, legs akimbo, staring up at Buffy, her fist still clenched. She looked from one supine vampire to the other and sighed. “Oh we are so not doing this,” and stomped up to the back door.

“Buffy?” Angel was shocked to find his voice in perfect unison, in inflection and tone, with Spike’s.

“I thought you were my friend,” Buffy said, and slammed the kitchen door behind her.

Faint, but more than loud enough for vampire ears, they heard Dawn say, “Oh, ha… yeah, that guest for dinner? Was Angel. Surprise?”

“I’ll sodding kill her,” Spike muttered, re-settling his coat on his shoulders. “Well, come on, Liam. Let’s see what’s for dinner.” And he flashed the cheekiest smile imaginable at Angel before following Buffy into the house.

Angel sat on the grass, having a little too much information dumped on his brain all at once, he needed a moment to process it all. He heard dishes clattering, and Spike’s low rumble, and Buffy’s clear, “Don’t start.”

That, more than a million kisses, spoke of a common life, an intimacy of day-to-day interaction that floored him. Buffy knew when Spike was about to “start”. And could get him to demure with a word.

Spike’s heavy boots moved to the dinning-room, and he said, “Better little sisters have been killed for less, Niblet. Your sister does all she can for you and you…”

“Spike! Don’t.”

And Angel sat, aghast, still wrapped in the ghostly fragments of what he thought life was like in Sunnydale – how Spike was a begrudged, peripheral figure, never to be seen outside of necessary slaying incidents.

Slowly, Angel gave up, let the tattered images fly away into nothing, and walked up to the kitchen door. Hat-in-hand, if he’d had a hat. Like a friend. He rapped gently and stuck his head in. “Can I come in?”

And Buffy, looking quite brittle and harried, sighed, softened, and took his arm. “You’re pathetic,” she said. “And we have to talk. But after dinner, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. It wasn’t like he could speak much at the moment.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Matchmaker! Still PG-13 (and only that because of Spike's potty mouth.)
> 
> So... Angel, Spike, Buffy and Dawn all have a nice, sit-down dinner together. Think that'll work?

Aside from the oregano and pasta smells coming from the covered casserole in the center of the table, Angel tried to ignore the various scents in the room. Thick, sweet, and heavy as spice.

Spike raised one eyebrow just a fraction, and in that tiny motion said he knew everything going through Angel’s mind.

Sometimes, Angel really, really hated being a vampire.

Spike slipped carelessly into a chair and picked up a fork. “I’m famished,” he said.

Buffy slapped his hand and hissed, “Behave.” She lifted the top off the casserole and stuck a serving spoon in.

“She can barely make ends meet and you’re eating her food?” Angel couldn’t stop himself from saying. “You’re a vampire. You don’t derive any nourishment from that!”

“Drop the crown of thorns, please, Peaches. I eat less than a supermodel.”

Dawn muttered, “A really fat supermodel,” and snatched the serving spoon from Spike after he put one glob of casserole on his plate.

Buffy sighed heavily. “I’ll get you some blood. I wasn’t really expecting.” She shrugged.

“I’ll help you,” Angel said, giving Spike another glare, which the other vampire calmly ignored.

“So what were you doing outside to make Angel punch you?” Dawn asked, innocently, and Angel was pleased to hear Spike choke on a mouthful of pasta.

Buffy rummaged in a cupboard, pushing mugs and glasses back and forth until she selected one for him. He wondered what standard had rejected the others. She opened the fridge. “I think we have… yeah, about two pints of pig left.”

Angel cleared his throat. “You know, I didn’t mean for you to be _that_ close to him.”

He intended it as a bit of a joke, but it came out all angry. He cleared his throat again.

“It has nothing to do with you.” Buffy didn’t look at him, intent on pouring blood into the mug from a Styrofoam butcher’s container.

“It had better not,” Angel muttered under his breath.

Buffy closed the microwave and started it running. “Which means what, exactly?” She turned to face him, arms crossed.

Angel opened and closed his mouth. Then he pointed toward the dining room and, as if this explained everything, said, “He is evil.”

Buffy sighed and half-smiled. “Don’t I know it.”

“Just please tell me… tell me this… this relationship...”

“It’s not a relationship!” Buffy said it as though she’d said it a hundred times.

“Tell me you’re not sleeping with Spike because of what I said.”

There was a clatter and the scrape of a chair pushing back. “Niblet,” Spike said, and coughed. “Uh… they’re… talking… metaphor-like. Buffy?”

Dawn ran into the kitchen scant steps ahead of Spike, who stopped at the door and covered his face with one hand.

“Who with the what and how now?”

Buffy covered her face, too.

The microwave beeped.

“Peaches and big sis are just having a bit of fun,” Spike said, in a tone the most gullible person would not believe. “Uh… right? Come on, back to the table. Your sis worked long and hard on this… whatever it is we’re eating.”

Buffy shook her head and straightened, hands at her sides again. “Not helping, Spike. You’re just making it more obvious. Which is… strangely sweet.”

Angel narrowed his eyes. “This was a secret?”

“Omigawd! You’d tell Angel but you wouldn’t tell your own sister?”

Buffy faced off across from Dawn. “I didn’t tell him. _Someone_ invited him to dinner without warning me.”

“You were _doing it_ on the side lawn?”

“No!” Three voices shouted at once.

Dawn took a step back, hands raised defensively.

“Not this time, anyway,” Spike said, very quietly.

Buffy had to grab Angel’s arm to stop him from swinging.

Angel looked Buffy in the eyes. They had a brief, silent contest, and at last she sighed and let him go. He winced and rubbed his arm. Looking directly at Spike, he said, “No one bathed in bleach this time.”

Spike ducked his head, abashed. Dawn looked confused. “Bleach?”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Oh god. I get it. I wish I didn’t, but I get it.”

“Come on,” Spike said, stepping toward the back door. “Let’s have the big, posturing man-talk in the back while the girls get some supper.”

Angel frowned, but nodded and moved to follow Spike.

Buffy jumped in front of the door. “Woah! What are you going to say to him?”

Angel thought for a second she was asking him, and he honestly had no idea what he was going to say to Spike, aside from “leave Buffy, and for that matter all living women, alone.”

But then Spike said, with a hard note of hurt, “Not going to kiss and tell. But if that’s how you feel, Dawn and I will eat and you can hold the big sod’s hand.”

“Can we get back to the part where no one is telling me anything?” Dawn asked.

Buffy looked pained. “Okay. Spike and I…. had sex. It was no big deal and we’re over it and everything is fine. And this doesn’t leave the house, okay?”

“No big deal? That’s disappointing,” Dawn gave Spike a significant glance.

“Oi! I’ll have you know…” Spike’s rant quickly aborted at a glance from Buffy. He seemed to shrink a little and shrugged. “Yeah. No big deal.”

Angel wasn’t proud of the little flare of hope he felt. “So you aren’t really seeing him or anything? It was just a one-time thing? An accident?”

“Oh please,” said Dawn. “Like ‘woops, I fell and landed on top of a boy?’ I don’t think so.”

“I know I made some bad choices. It… Dawn, I didn’t want you to know because I knew it was setting a bad example. I didn’t want you to think less of me, or to think that… well, that it was okay, what I did.”

Buffy had stepped forward, away from the door, to plead with Dawn. Spike, moving quickly and his head down, slipped behind her and out into the night.

Buffy spun in place as the screen slammed shut. “Oh hell.”

Angel looked from Buffy to Dawn and back again. “I’ll go get him.”

“Angel! Wait. Don’t…”

Angel shook his head. “I’m not going to stake him. Tonight.”

Buffy looked like she didn’t want to accept that, but glancing back at Dawn’s expectant face, she nodded, just once, and let him slip out the door.

Angel allowed himself a moment of marveling at just how very different this was than the evening he had planned, and took a deep sigh, which turned into a deep sniff of the air to find which direction Spike went in.

Which turned into a low growl because Spike’s scent was everywhere.

Angel paced under the streetlight and felt, strongly and passionately, that he wanted a cigarette.

Then he smelled one.

Of course.

Spike sat on the bumper of the Plymouth, flicking ashes sulkily at his feet. Typical Spike, running just far enough away he could be easily caught.

Spike glanced up at him. “What do you want? Come to rub it in?”

“Rub what in?”

Spike raised his eyebrows. “Oh right. Sorry. Forgot for a second that the world revolves around your fat arse.” He pitched his cigarette and stood.

“Give me one good reason not to beat you.”

Spike smirked. “I’ll win.”

Angel knew he shouldn’t let Spike goad him. He knew that fighting was only going to add more frustration to Buffy’s night. But his right fist didn’t get the memo and slammed into Spike’s jaw before he could stop it.

And, really, for the full second of impact and the momentary blanking of Spike’s smug look, it was definitely worth it.

And then he was punched in the gut, hard, driving all the air out of him. Less fun.

He grabbed Spike’s fist and kicked him. They ended up half sprawled on the car and for a moment he worried about his shocks more than his face as Spike punched him and the springs underneath protested.

He kicked Spike into the tree in Buffy’s front yard.

Instead of jumping right back at him, Spike stood and righted his duster on his shoulders. “You selfish prick. Do you have any idea what Buffy’s going to think when she hears us tearing up her garden?”

“Me? I! You!” Angel forced himself to calm. He was the adult here, after all. He let go a slow breath and said, “You started it.”

There. That was mature. Angel winced.

“Did I bollocks. I did the polite thing and buggered out of there so you could have your tearful reunion and forgive the slayer for having the bad taste to use me to scratch her itch.” Spike cast a rueful glance back at the house. He leaned back against the tree and started fishing his cigarettes out of his pocket.

Angel briefly considered that the whole punching thing was working much better than any attempt at conversation. “What?”

“Go. She’s waiting in there, probably wants to cry all over your big, broad shoulder and explain how she never meant to do anything so filthy. Forgive her. Give her that absolution she craves so you can live chastely ever after.” Spike kept his eyes down on his cigarette.

“I don’t need to forgive Buffy. In fact, I sort of can’t.”

Spike shot him a hateful look. “Right. Evil, soulless thing and all. How can you forgive shagging _that_.”

“God, are you stupid.”

“Thanks. That too. Go on, Angel. I’m not going to stop you. Even I would rather date you than me.”

Angel smacked him, open palm, across the cheek. As he hoped, he got a few seconds of stunned silence. “I can’t forgive Buffy because there’s nothing to forgive. I’m not upset with her, and I’m old enough to know it’s none of my business who she… is with.” He grimaced.

“So you’re, what? Giving me the polite shove-off on her behalf?” Spike looked honestly confused.

“Is that what you really think is going on here? God, Spike. You can be so insightful about other people but you’re sure an idiot when it comes to yourself.”

“How about helping me out then, Liam, because I’m buggered if I know what you’re doing here talking to me when the slayer is in there.” He jerked a thumb back toward the house.

“Did it occur to you that maybe _you_ are the one I’m upset with?”

“The punch to the jaw was a bit of a hint. I slept with your girl. I get that. What I don’t get is this strange almost heart-to-heartless we’re having.”

“Did you take advantage of her? Did you hurt her, force her?”

A half-amused scowl, and Spike blew the smoke out his nose. “You wouldn’t even be asking if you didn’t know the answer is ‘no’. I don’t kiss and tell, ‘Gelus. You want to find out how we ended up bumping uglies, ask her.”

Angel flexed a fist, but managed to keep his tone calm. “So you promise me it was all… mutual. Stupid, but mutual.”

“Like you’ll believe me no matter what I say.”

“I’m still angry at you.”

“Why?”

“You should have told me. You should have not covered it up.”

“What I do hasn’t been your business in a long time.”

“Maybe it should be.”

“Aren’t I evil? Unredeemable? Only an enemy to fight in your heroic worldview?”

“You… have a way of messing that up.”

“How effortlessly I go from being not evil enough for you to too evil, is that it?”

Somehow they had ended up stepping closer and closer as they spoke, and now their chests almost touched, and each word Spike spoke brought a puff of breath against Angel’s face, and he suddenly found himself even less inclined to be angry at Buffy, because he had less reason than she to want to kiss the irritating little bastard, and now it was all he could think of because those lips were just close and he remembered how they felt.

Spike frowned. “Peaches?”

Angel’s lips opened and closed, just a little, like taking nibbles of the air. He took a quick, large step back, and it felt like tearing himself off Velcro. “I… I’m going to go talk to Buffy. She wanted you to not run off mad. That’s why I came out. Bye.”

He dashed in the front door, hoping he didn’t look as scared as he felt.

Buffy and Dawn were sitting on the couch, hands together, obviously in the middle of a serious discussion. He could smell traces of tears.

With a sigh, he closed the door behind himself. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More PG-13 sweet and friendly fluff!
> 
> In this part, Buffy and Angel discuss Spike! (Can he keep from blurting about 'that one time'?)

“Dawn, maybe you should go upstairs,” Buffy said, gently.

Dawn stood, rubbed her cheeks, and glared at Angel for a bit, like everything was suddenly his fault.

(Admittedly, Angel often felt that everything was his fault, but that didn’t inure him to the sting of such looks.) He winced. “Ow.”

“What did Spike say?”

Buffy was sitting up, straight, staring at him expectantly. Angel coughed and looked for a good seat to take, preferably positioned out of the direct line of fire. “You seem to ask me that a lot.”

“Whatever he said, it’s an exaggeration. You know better than to believe him over me!” Buffy stood. “And I don’t have to listen to you lecture me about it. I made some stupid choices, all right?” She flung her arms out. “Go ahead. Tell me how I’m a disappointment, how I’m going to ruin the world by not being perfect.”

“Wow,” Angel said. He blinked. All the tight, anxious emotion of the past hour seemed to evaporate. He started to smile and had to stop himself. “Is that what you really think of me? That I’d come here and judge you on your relationships?”

She folded her arms. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Come on! Riley was…” he stopped, quelled with a glare. “Buffy, I’m not here to lecture you, or judge. I know I don’t have that right. And, fine, okay, I didn’t have that right with Riley, either. But I’ve grown since then.”

“That wasn’t even two years ago.”

“A lot’s happened!” He gestured helplessly.

Their eyes met, and Buffy’s scowl released a slight smile, like a hostage. She rolled her eyes. “You look so cute when you’re being a complete dork.”

He smiled. “Is it working?”

“Please, just tell me what he said.”

And Angel saw the vulnerability that she was trying so hard to hide. An expression he never would have expected on Buffy. It made his mouth dry. It made him remember Spike’s words: _you can hurt her because she loves you._

“You love him,” he said, surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth.

“I do not!” She flinched as though slapped.

“It kind of looks like it to me.”

“Look again.” She grabbed him, his head between her hands. “I love _you_.”

“And, what? Human beings are limited to loving only one person? I love you. I love Cordelia.” He had meant to say “Connor”. He shook his head. “Connor. I love lots of people. Even Spike. Sort of. In a way.”

Buffy stepped back. “You had an argument, there, but you blew it.”

“You love Dawn, don’t you?”

“That’s a different kind of love.”

“And she annoys the hell out of you,” Angel shrugged, resting his case, he thought, Spike-wise.

Buffy turned. She took a few steps and stopped. “I _want_ you to lecture. Tell me how stupid I am.”

“You’re not stupid. Spike is a beautiful man. And when he decides to care about someone, he does, completely and loyally.”

“Tell me I’m blinded by his abs.”

“He has very nice abs.”

“And those cheekbones.” Buffy flopped onto the couch with a sigh, as though defeated by the power of Spike’s cheekbones.

Angel, not sure how this would help, confessed, “I like his lips.”

“He does this thing with his tongue…” Buffy trailed off with a dreamy expression.

“The curl behind the teeth thing?”

Buffy frowned. “You like his lips?”

“I can say that, can’t I? A man can like another man’s mouth.”

“You said lips.”

“Well, yeah. But the whole mouth is nice. When he’s not talking, mostly.”

Buffy looked suspicious. “I know why _I_ like it.”

“I’m just agreeing with you. I mean, showing you I understand. It’s not unreasonable for anyone to be attracted to Spike. Not that I am! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There isn’t. That’s my whole point.” He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the whole stupid babble echo through the silence.

But Buffy spoke as though she hadn’t noticed Angel losing his mind, she sounded tired. “I don’t like being attracted to Spike. I don’t like how I am, with him. I don’t like the person I’ve become.”

Angel shifted forward in his seat and watched her very closely, trying to forget that this was Buffy, all the history, and just see. He was a detective, wasn’t he? “What is that?”

Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “I’m using him.”

Angel blinked. Buffy feeling guilty over sleeping with Spike was somewhere beyond Buffy sleeping with Spike in his list of things he never thought he’d ever have to deal with, ever. He was rather proud of himself for just clearing his throat and saying, “How so?”

“He loves me – or thinks he does, or…” she threw one hand up in a helpless gesture. “I’m not going to get in a semantic argument over ‘love’. He wants affection. Closeness. He wants to gaze at me with dewy eyes. Dewy!” She gestured again. “I don’t want that. All I wanted was to feel. The sex.”

She stopped, and glanced quickly at Angel as though afraid he’d heard, which was silly, and kind of cute. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting sex,” Angel said, smiling.

“It’s really great sex,” Buffy said, with a desperate edge of plea. “You have to understand. Mind-blowing, consuming, nothing matters, nothing exists but this moment-type sex. For hours and hours. Whenever, wherever. He’s always there when I need him, and always ready. Do you have any idea what that’s like? How am I supposed to resist that?”

Angel shifted uncomfortably. Now, he felt, he had no need to feel guilty, because Mother Teresa would be jealous at this point. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting that,” he said. It came out a little higher-pitched than he intended.

“You don’t know what he’s like.”

Oh, Angel thought, let’s not correct that one. He crossed his legs and adjusted the lay of his jacket so it covered his groin more thoroughly.

“So… focused. So giving. And I know I’m hurting him, but he keeps coming back. He steps right up to the plate and asks for another helping of ‘hurt me’.”

“And you… hurt him.”

Buffy stood and began pacing again. “He’s a soulless killer. This evil thing. Supposedly, he can take it. But I can’t, Angel. I can’t take the look in his eyes. I can’t take knowing. I can’t give him what he wants, but when I deny it, I hurt him. And every time I hurt him, I feel myself become a little less capable of stopping.”

“Then you should end it.”

“I can’t.”

“Buffy, a lot of people who do things they know they shouldn’t excuse it by saying they can’t help it.”

“He kissed me first!”

“I don’t doubt that.”

She looked shocked at Angel’s response. Her eyes narrowed, shrewdly. “What did he say?”

“He said he doesn’t kiss and tell. In fact, he said it twice. But I didn’t go out there to ask him how you ended up together.” He laced his fingers together and frowned. “I went out there because you asked me to.”

“Oh god.” Buffy covered her eyes. “Are all the vampires making better moral choices than me now?”

He stood and put his hands on her elbows. She fell against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her forehead, which smelled of coconut shampoo. “Buffy,” he said, and for a while, that was all. “Buffy.”

She sniffled. “So have I ruined all your illusions about me? Am I horrible?”

“Of course not.” He kissed her hairline again, and drew her face up to look at him. “You have to stop hurting yourself like this.”

“How?”

“Stop hurting him.”

“I can’t _make_ myself love him.”

“Of course not. That’s not what’s hurting him anyway, is it?”

Angel noticed that Spike was on the front porch. His scent wafted in through the open door. He was, he realized, listening in. Who knew how long he had been, though.

Buffy sniffled against his chest, and then laughed. “I don’t think Spike can love me and not get hurt. That might even be part of the attraction for him.”

Angel stroked her back. She was so _little_. Had she always been this little? “I think you’re making this harder on yourself than it needs to be. You need to forgive yourself.”

“You can’t just sleep with people you don’t love.”

Angel stooped, to meet her height, cradling her face between his hands. “Buffy? You were the first person I slept with that I did love.”

She pulled a face. He kissed her anyway. “And I don’t feel guilty about it.”

“You should.”

“No, Buffy. With a list of sins like mine, you get some perspective into guilt. Hurting people should make you guilty. But if no one is hurt? If no one expects more?” He shook his head.

Buffy bit her lip. “He does expect more.”

“Is he pressuring you? Making you uncomfortable?” Angel hoped Buffy didn’t notice him addressing these questions to a shadow outside the window. “Is he making you feel like you have to lie to him?”

“No…”

“Think about it, Buffy. He is capable of passive aggressive bullshit.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “And I’m capable of aggressive-aggressive.” She paced. “Why are you helping? I expected you to charge in, beat Spike up, and tell me I was… dirty… or something.”

“I thought I was going to sit down and enjoy a friendly meal where the chief drama would be Dawn complaining about some girl at her school who won’t sit at her lunch table.”

Buffy crossed her arms and smiled. “I was the snobby girl, once.”

“And then you became the slayer.”

“No.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Being the slayer doesn’t give you any maturity. It just gives you a job. I had to learn to care about people other than myself.”

Angel thought briefly of Cordelia, how she was when he first met her, how he didn’t care for her at all. How she changed and forced her way into his heart. He smiled too. “The Buffy I love always cared for others.”

Buffy set her hand on his chest. “The Angel I love always had a soul.”

They shared a quiet moment, admiring their own past naïveté like parents.

On the porch there was a quiet cough and a muttered, “ponce.”

Buffy frowned at the front door.

“Right,” Angel said, a little too loudly. He stepped back. “Be nicer to Spike, or I’ll take him back to LA with me and you won’t have him.”

“Oi! I’m not a sodding Ken doll!”

Buffy turned her frown to Angel. “How long?”

“Since about the hug, I think.”

“Spike!” Buffy marched to the front door and threw the screen open. “Get in here.”

He slouched in like a scolded puppy. “What? You don’t expect me to eavesdrop? I’m evil.”

“Butt. Couch.” Buffy pointed. “We’re going to have a talk.”

“We never talk,” Spike said, almost too hard for Angel to hear, but he crossed to the couch as bid, never taking his hands out of his pockets.

Angel had a feeling this was not the healthy way to start a relationship. A tiny voice also asked him why, again, he wanted to help?

But he cleared his throat and faced Spike.

Spike was slouched on the couch, legs spread to different compass points. “Wot?”

Oh, the lower lip was out a bit too. Pink and biteable.

Angel cleared his throat and looked at Buffy. Her expression was tired, resolved, her hair frizzing around her face. That was easier. “Spike,” he asked, “what do you want from Buffy?”

“Don’t bleeding want anything.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “He wants me to tell the others.”

Angel said, “I think that’s a very good idea.”

“Give the vampire a silver dollar!”

Buffy glared at Spike. Spike sulked. Angel took a step toward the door. “I’ll leave you two. To talk.”

The air outside was fresh and moist. He heaved a long sigh, filling his lungs full. He felt vaguely like he’d escaped. And also vaguely sad. Like a graduation. There’s always something lost.

He reached the Plymouth and started opening the door. Small, fast feet pounded down the sidewalk after him. He turned and had a Buffy-missle impact him.

Her arms squeezed him tight. “Thank you,” she said.

He returned the hug. “What are friends for?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, some of you aren't going to like this.
> 
> But this is the last chapter of Matchmaker. I hope you all can figure out why I ended it here and what my not-so-secret motives were in writing the whole thing. ;) It came in at just about 18,000 words total.
> 
> It's been a fun little fic. There is the most smut of all in this chapter - and it's, er, self-luvin'. *cough*
> 
> So, "soft R".

Angel felt happy – well, not happy so much as good. That quiet, sad good that is four parts “resigned” that you feel when you know you’ve done the right thing. Like the ache of muscles after a stern workout.

He wanted to hold onto the feeling, the calm. He’d studied meditation for half a century and still couldn’t get that peace on demand. Nor keep it, once he achieved it.

Like now, half-way back to LA, his brain, for some masochistic reason all its own, interrupted his meditative musings on the color of tail lights and the confident movement of his big old car.

“Huh,” his mind said, piping up loud like an uninvited guest at a funeral, “She said she could have Spike any time she wanted. Any where she wanted. Any way she wanted. Wow.”

Angel shifted into higher gear and tried to tamp down the lustful curiosity. He should _not_ be fantasizing about his ex’s love life. He shouldn’t be envying it, either.

This was more than envy, though. It was… marveling. Beauty. He could meditate about that.

(Oh, who was he kidding? Energetic thoughts disturb meditation like a rock into a still pool. These thoughts were an outboard motor in a koi pond, chopping up the fish and scattering them, and the frothy water, all over the garden.)

Angel pulled in to the first rest stop he found and parked in the most secluded spot. Once his mind got to violence, he knew, there was no stopping it.

He let it go – let the violence and sex flood his mind and senses. Evil. Shame. Humiliation. Degradation. A thousand contorted visions of pale limbs and blond hair, coveted and beaten and…

He couldn’t get past “beaten”. He was making strangled, helpless noises and humping up into his hand, spilling his release on the steering wheel.

He let out a long, shaky breath, and looked around, dazed to find himself in an ugly chain-link-fenced picnic area along the freeway. His right hand was wet and sticky. He fumbled with his left to get his handkerchief out.

“The new, more mature Angel,” he said, for no one’s benefit but his own, and stuffed the balled-up hanky in the glove compartment.

He was, at least, calm again, though now it was the tired, vaguely ashamed calm: dark twin of his earlier calm. He merged back into traffic and thought, well, maybe being mature doesn’t mean not doing immature things, so much, as being aware of them.

Forgive yourself and move on to the next thing that needs done.

He fished out his cell. A horn blared as he swerved slightly out of his lane.

“Hi, Wes. How’s Connor?”

“You made it three hours without calling,” Wes said, dryly. “I’ve lost my bet with Cordelia.”

“Cordy’s back?”

“She stopped in on her way back to her apartment.”

“Was Groo with her? Wait… don’t answer that.”

He could almost hear Wesley’s smile. “The baby is fine. He’s sleeping.”

“Thanks,” Angel said, and swerved out of his lane again turning the phone off. He tossed it onto the passenger seat. Evil thing.

Cordy’s home was bright with lights, the cool California night fragrant with garden flowers in her quiet neighborhood. Angel spent just a shade too long for a mature man sitting awkwardly in his car, staring at her door.

With all his brooding and uncertainty, Cordelia, a real, breathing Cordelia answering the door, was a shock to the senses.

“Angel!” she said.

“Hi,” he said.

Cordelia leaned out of the door, peering behind him, as though to check for an entourage. She smelled of suntan lotion and salt water. “Are you coming in?”

“Is Groo here?” He blurted it out; he wasn’t proud.

Cordy crossed her arms. “Are you coming in or not?”

Sheepishly, Angel followed her into the apartment. “I just wondered.”

“No. We got him a place of his own. He’s sweet, but I don’t do well with non-ghost roommates. He hung his leggings from my shower head!” Cordelia shook her head and shut the door. “Cute, but dumb.”

“And, um, how serious are… um… is…”

“The com-shucking?” Cordelia raised a smug eyebrow. “Is that why you came rushing here the minute I’m back?”

“No. Maybe. I…” Angel ran out of living room to pace and had to turn around and face her. He knocked his fists together. “I’ve been trying to do the mature thing.”

“That’s good,” Cordy brightened a bit. She crossed to the couch and folded her long, tanned legs on it. “Because the jealous thing was cute, but only to a point.”

“You noticed? The, uh, the jealous thing?”

Cordy gave her best smirk. “Duh?”

Angel imagined little figures on his shoulders. One groaning and rolling his little eyes, saying, “Tell her already!” The other said “Jump her!”

“Make conversation,” he said, aloud, and Cordy blinked at him. He cleared his throat. “I just want to… talk. I missed you.”

Cordy leaned her cheek on her knee, smiling. “I’m all tired out from vacation. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to get back to work. Nice, long boring hours manning the phone!”

Angel sat down on the opposite chair, and nodded, while Cordy told him about her vacation, where they stayed, what they ate, what she bought. It was good. He nodded and paid attention, really he did, up until he shifted forward in his seat and asked, “What would you do if you had someone who was always available to you?”

“What? Did that sentence mean something, because I missed it?”

“Let’s say you have a friend, a lover – and that person, though you don’t love them, is always prepared to have sex with you. All times, all places, no questions.”

“You mean like a sex slave?”

“Er, I guess.”

Cordy rolled her lips inward and shrugged.

“Would you feel guilty, sleeping with them?”

“Angel? Has something happened you want to share with the rest of the class?”

“It’s not me. This is… well, someone else. Okay, Buffy.”

“ _Buffy_ has a sex slave?” She gaped, and sounded slightly aghast, as though she’d just been informed Buffy had trumped her shoe selection.

“Well, if you were her, and you did, would you feel guilty?”

“Uh… hell no?”

“Yeah, me neither.”

Cordy raised her eyebrow quizzically. “What was _that_ about?”

“Well, nothing, just…. See, _she_ feels guilty.”

“And this ‘sex slave’ – he… or she?... is willing?”

“Very.”

“So she’s being stupid.” Cordy tossed a hand over her shoulder, as though disposing of the topic.

“I love you.”

Her feet dropped to the floor, pulling her into a more erect posture. “Did I miss a segue?”

Angel shook his head. ”I came here to tell you I love you.”

“And the whole ‘sex slave’ conversation was just to keep me off balance enough that you could just blurt that out and it wouldn’t feel weird?”

“Uh… I didn’t plan that.”

“I can tell.” She leaned forward, peering at his face.

Angel looked down at his wringing hands. “I know you have… something with Groo. But I recently realized how many opportunities I’ve missed. I’ve missed opportunities to do good, but I’ve also missed opportunities to love. To be close. We have a great friendship, and I hope we’ll always have that. We… I think we understand each other. You used to be a real bitch. And me – I was a total ass.” He looked up to see her still staring at him, intently. “Not that, you know, being the high school ‘popular girl’ is anything compared to a century of murder and mayhem. I’m just…”

Cordy reached across the space between them and set her hand on top of his. “Angel?”

He met her eyes. “The point is just: I love you.”

“I know,” she said.

He turned his hand over, catching hers, and they held on to each other.

The end.

Epilogue

 

Groosalug conceded his place as Cordelia’s consort with expected formality and grace, wishing Angel ‘Much com-shuck’.

If he could have blushed, Angel would have.

The news that Spike and Buffy were “out” as a couple lagged behind Cordy and Angel’s announcement, at least in LA. And when Cordy hung up the phone with Willow, her eyes met Angel’s with a knowing smirk. “He is that type, isn’t he?”

She kept up the 'sex slave' jokes for months. Angel couldn't fault her. One of the things he loved in her was that touch of sadistic glee.


End file.
